Puzzle Quest: Galactrix Preview

In space, no one can see you nerd out.

We at GR already know that, for many of you, the original Puzzle Quest ultimately contributed to the demise of your previous job/nominally-heterosexual union/general attention span. And we sympathize. Indeed, at least one of your humble GR hosts had to whip out his DS copy of Puzzle Quest in sheer psychic self-defense at one particular overlong game-publisher press-conference. Namely me.

[image1]Anyway, I hope y’all didn’t get too attached to that high-fantasy treatment in the original. Galactrix takes the extra-terrestrial high ground this time around. You’re in space, and you’re dealing with ship-to-ship combat that manifests in a hexagon-based battleground. Because it’s a hex-based struggle, the entire battle comes at you from multiple directions. Line up at least three tiles, and you’ll pump your own starship’s shields, direct devastating energy attacks on the shield of your foes, gather intel on new device add-ons, and more. The multidirectional, hexagonal-battlefield approach also means that it’s less likely you’ll end up in one of those situations where you can see your doom coming in the stack-down, but there’s nowhere to go. So good job there, D3 Publisher.

Galactrix has also got some fairly open-ended elements, such as the ability to cruise around and trade goods in various (regularly-patrolled) star systems. You know the drill—buy low, sell high. There’s even some play-different-factions-against-each-other action. Hard as it is to believe, Puzzle Quest: Galactrix looks like it might be even more addicting than its predecessor. (Hey, are you even paying attention?)